More riders?

Read the above post Kenessex. The unstated purpose of this thread is now in the beeb award panther prize thread. There was no intent or interest in telling Mongo how to run WERA. I still think the plan could be a go, waiting on responses. This was for a positive effort to increase grids or retain riders. Not for a 'WERA/NESBA' sucks thread.

 

Shawn, please don't listen to the vintage haters. It appears to me there are enough bikes that start a race that has vintage and other classes that it is not wasted track time.

If it gets people's shorts in a knot stop posting vintage class placements unless there are "enough" in the class. I don't care, I just want to race against anyone around me whether they are in my class or not.

Wheel B, Vintage classes are not on the track by themselves.

 

Back in 2016 I resurrected my RD400. First race I did was Grattan in V2 and V4. I was the only person that showed up in those classes (hey, 2 participation awards!). I then DNF'ed at RA and Mid Ohio Vintage Days. Sometime around December or January, I got a package from WERA. I'm confused as hell as to why I'm getting a package from them, open it up and it's my National ranking of 3rd place for the year in V2. I only ran 1 race!

But to get to your final point, and you should know this...the Vintage races are run with other classes so it really has zero effect on other classes that you believe are being held back or not represented. I dislike the fact that more people don't participate as much as you do. So much so that I'm going modern next year (well, as modern as an SV can be). But the Vintage classes certainly aren't an issue. And if I brought my RD or RZ out again, I'd still rather race against 1 or 2 people with WERA than 20 with AHRMA.

 

Thank you for making my point. Yes, the intent of this post was to increase grids and retain riders.

I'd venture to say pointing out the lack of riders in the vintage classes is not conducive to increasing grids.

 

I had mentioned this a few pages back. My thought was it would get track day riders around WERA racers and get a good vibe. Some might stay and race the next day or decide to do it next time around. The reason being to attract more racers.

There is no doubt in my mind that WERA folks have already thought of this.[/QUOTE]

This is exactly how CVMA works and how I started racing. The organization Track Daz hosted the Friday track day and New Racers School before the race weekend. During the riders meeting they would always take 5 minutes to talk about racing and who to talk to if you are interested. It definitely helped me out since I didn’t even know competitive racing for weekend warriors was an actual thing.

 

I do know they run with other classes. In fact, I've seen days where they run 3 or so classes at the same time, and it's still not even a double digit grid.

Vintage folks (prior V8 class rider myself) predominately ride those bikes for a few main reasons - Nostalgia, financial cost, and a way to enjoy gridding up in an arguable less aggressive grid than current day 600/1000 classes. All of which I don't have an issue with. I don't know many of them that are willing to travel a lot (The 2022 national results speak for themselves), and there's nothing wrong with that.

But if that's going to be the case, there needs to be a consolidation of vintage rounds throughout the year and that time freed up for WERA during the weekend needs to have a more profitable schedule.

"Vintage hater"...LOL. For a forum that prides itself on mocking today's society for being offended over everything, there's quite a few of you that get offended when someone (me) points out the obvious - the vintage classes are not sustaining WERA's operations, nor are they doing anything to grow the grid (for any race class)

 

I don't disagree with some of your comments, but I'd like to hear from management if this is actually the case or just a perception you have. Personally I think they're simply available to those who choose to participate and do nothing to hurt WERA whatsoever. Nor do I believe they were ever intended to sustain WERA's operations.

 

That was my first thought when I read that post on here. I don't know if its something that WERA is interested in, or if it's ever been tried by any org.

Maybe throwing all of these hair brained ideas around will lead to an idea that is worth trying.

 

Whenever CCS comes to NJMP the rider’s club hosts a TD the Friday before the race weekend. They drop the “first TD” group and split the AM/EX racers into 2 fastest TD groups. Other than that slight change in format it was a bog standard TD, but still way more enjoyable than normal because most of the usual slow riders were scared away by “CCS practice day” on the schedule.

I went and it was one of the best TD’s I had all year, realizing I could run acceptable mid-am pace tipped me towards racing next year.

 

N2 does this on the Fridays before the Saturday endurance races/ Sunday sprint races. Yeah, better than your typical track day because its more racers than not. But you still need to bring your leathers to tech....grrrrrrrrr.

 

I am very relieved by how this thread turned out at this point. I have three vintage race bikes and just started building another. I feel comfortable proceeding.

I am going to be more mindful of offering help to others especially racers or would be racers.

 

Well I'm glad we hit the part where you mention you tried it and it doesn't work. The evolution is going as predicted.

 

Is this written down anywhere? I’m going on 16 years continuous. I’m Not scrounging for handouts but I retired yesterday so my cheap -ass budget going forward is going to be squeezed so anything helps.

 

Exactly. In my experience fast racers usually don't do the Friday practice because they won't get enough clear track time sharing the track with track day riders. And they don't really need the track time anyway. There are exceptions of course but not enough to make it viable.